THE Irish community was represented at an important round table discussion led by BEMIS which will help inform submissions to the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
The committee will review the UK this August, and written and verbal submissions will be made in order to assist the UN in assessing compliance with the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination.
While the convention (CERD) has led to limited jurisprudence, only around a quarter of complaints to the committee are ultimately upheld, however the chance to make submissions detailing the positions of ethnic minorities in Scotland, as part of the UK, remains a valuable process.
Held in partnership with the Scottish Human Rights Commission, the round table discussion hosted in Glasgow brought forward several important issues affecting various communities in Scotland.
Importantly for the Irish community, attention was focussed on the lack of recognition for the Irish in Scotland from government and the intersectionality between anti-Catholicism and anti-Irish racism.
Discussion
A representative of The Irish Voice was present at the discussion, and engaged with those from some of Scotland’s other ethnic minorities to understand their experiences and share the priorities of the Irish community.
Speaking of the value of such events and the opportunity to make submissions, they said: “Meeting with representatives of the diverse minority ethnic communities in Scotland was illuminating. Whatever the problems we each face, every representative shared their frustration and anger that we are not heard.
“We look forward to making our submission to highlight our experiences and to continue to play our part in challenging racial discrimination. We are determined to ensure that the Irish in Scotland have an effective voice, and opportunities like this to step outside the narrative which has been cultivated in Scotland and make clear calls for our collective rights to be upheld are hugely important steps forward.
“We are immensely grateful to BEMIS CEO, Rami Ousta for his tenacity and leadership and to Danny Boyle for his unstinting efforts to drive much-needed change. We thank BEMIS for this opportunity to stand with so many communities in Scotland as they work to ensure racial discrimination in all forms is eliminated.”
References
Already BEMIS have written to the UN committee, with the submission published by them through the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN’s leading human rights body, and in their letter made several references to the present position of the Irish community in Scotland.
“Often religion is used as an indicator of an ethnic identity very specific to Scotland, for example; Catholic/Irish, Muslim/Pakistani,” the letter explained. “The committee must note that those subjected to anti-Irish racism, a phenomenon specific to Scotland, that the community entirely rejects the assertion that this is ‘sectarianism.’
“The Irish community organisations in Scotland have categorically stated that they consider the experiences they have had to be motivated by racial hostility on the basis of their ethnicity as acknowledged explicitly by CERD. If duty bearers and stakeholders have the ability to acknowledge Islamophobia and anti-Semitism as specific phenomena then in a Scottish context anti-Catholicism and its intersectionality with anti-Irish racism has represented over 50 per cent of all religiously aggravated hate crime incidents since devolution in 2000.”
Concerns
With Scotland’s new Anti- Racism Observatory set to launch this year, concerns have been growing that the anti-racism framework going forward will not include many of Scotland’s ethnic minorities, focusing on skin colour to the exclusion of other important factors which can lead individuals or communities to suffer from racism.
“At present the work of the Anti-Racism Governance Group has focussed solely on colour, informed by Critical Race Theory concepts such as whiteness and white privilege,” the letter from BEMIS stated. “This has been to the significant detriment of hundreds of thousands of ethnic minority citizens who do not benefit from ‘whiteness.’
“CERD tests must be applied in relation to the social, economic, migration and political history of the jurisdiction that is under review. In Scotland this includes Irish, Jewish, Polish, Roma, Scottish Gypsy Travellers and others who have been strategically excluded from the AIGG, but simultaneously have not benefitted from the critical race theory concepts utilised to exclude them.
“This represents a significant mistake by the Scottish Government and is not responsive to the text or spirit of CERD. This must be addressed as a matter of urgency and priority and we urge the committee to deliver an unambiguous recommendation to the Scottish Government to include all CERD communities in the proposed operations of the Anti-Racism Observatory for Scotland.”
With the review by the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination taking place at the end of the summer, communities across Scotland are preparing submissions and working to ensure that the needs and rights of their members are represented. Through the work BEMIS in ensuring that Irish voices will also be heard, our community now also has the opportunity to represent itself in the fight to guarantee we can enjoy the same rights and protections which all people of Scotland should be entitled to.
PIC: NIKLAS JEROMIN
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